Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
R&D and transformation efforts often aim to learn, not just deliver. How do you justify and track success when discovery, not output, is the goal? Saving Changes...
Hi Lissette, The answer actually lies within the question itself. In such scenarios, learning is the real outcome. The key is to track whether the learnings are valuable or if the efforts are being directed in the wrong way. That assessment becomes the true success criterion. Saving Changes...
Maybe it's just semantics, but it seems that if the purpose of the initiative is solely discovery, it's an R&D experiment, not an R&D project. There are similarities, an important one being that, most of the time, experiments and projects deliver more potential value than actual value. Someone has to do something with what was delivered before it can produce actual value, whether it is a discovery/knowledge, product, or service.
In R&D work, you should not expect the first experiment to "succeed" in the sense of delivering something final. You could say you should expect it to fail, in that sense. The value of the first experiment comes from revealing assumptions, identifying unknowns, validating feasibility, and establishing direction. Subsequent experiments can be expected to be about testing variables, refining processes, and validating conclusions until you are able to deliver something that has the potential to be used to produce actual value, or until you learn that it is no longer worth pursuing.
While there are less tangible ways to justify experiments, a couple important questions are 1) whether the cost has exceeded expected benefits, and 2) whether the window of opportunity is still open.
An important question, when attempting to innovate, is will the end product or transformation result in strategic advantage, or at least enable you to be competitive if you hadn't been before. Having been around innovation and transformation efforts that felt uncertain (intentionally or otherwise), not only is it a recipe for disaster, it can transform company culture in unintentional ways that are not positive. If you don't know what you're trying to transform into, how will anyone know when you've achieved it? Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
That’s a powerful question, because it challenges one of the biggest misconceptions in project management: that value must always equal predictable output.
In innovation and R&D, the outcome is intentionally uncertain, the purpose is discovery.
So, the project’s true value lies not in what we produce, but in what we learn that changes future decisions.
A few guiding ideas:
Redefine success: From ‘Did we deliver?’ to ‘Did we learn something that advances the system’s knowledge or readiness?’
Track learning velocity: How fast hypotheses are tested, insights validated, and pivots informed by evidence.
Measure adaptive value: What new capabilities, mindsets, or data the organization gained to make better decisions next time.
Balance exploration and exploitation: Even in uncertainty, governance should reward disciplined experimentation, learning with intention, not chaos.
In essence, PMs in innovation projects become curators of discovery, managing not just scope and time, but learning cycles and strategic insight.
Value, in this context, is measured not by predictability, but by the quality and speed of collective learning.”
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1 reply by Thomas Walenta
Nov 03, 2025 8:23 AM
Thomas Walenta
...
Good reply, Luis.
Let's remind us: value is in the eyes of the beholders, the different stakeholders.
You are not looking at potential users of the innovations, but at the owners of the innovation process itself. So the targets of the R&D project could be patents filed, new ideas identified and verified etc.
As projects are defined as temporary initiatives to create a unique product, if we cannot predefine the product when starting the project, this initiative isn't a project at all. It can be viewed more effectively as a program that creates emerging benefits through related activities/projects.
Every innovation or R&D type project should start with a hypothesis to be tested. While learning is a desired outcome, getting evidence which either supports or disproves the hypothesis is equally important.
That’s a solid question - and one that challenges how we define “success” in innovation. In my experience, value in such projects isn’t measured by output alone but by validated learning. Did the team reduce uncertainty? Did we gain insights that guide better decisions next time? I often encourage teams to set “learning milestones” instead of delivery KPIs - things like assumptions tested, hypotheses validated, or market signals captured. The ROI then becomes decision quality and future speed, not immediate output. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
That’s a powerful question, because it challenges one of the biggest misconceptions in project management: that value must always equal predictable output.
In innovation and R&D, the outcome is intentionally uncertain, the purpose is discovery.
So, the project’s true value lies not in what we produce, but in what we learn that changes future decisions.
A few guiding ideas:
Redefine success: From ‘Did we deliver?’ to ‘Did we learn something that advances the system’s knowledge or readiness?’
Track learning velocity: How fast hypotheses are tested, insights validated, and pivots informed by evidence.
Measure adaptive value: What new capabilities, mindsets, or data the organization gained to make better decisions next time.
Balance exploration and exploitation: Even in uncertainty, governance should reward disciplined experimentation, learning with intention, not chaos.
In essence, PMs in innovation projects become curators of discovery, managing not just scope and time, but learning cycles and strategic insight.
Value, in this context, is measured not by predictability, but by the quality and speed of collective learning.”
Good reply, Luis.
Let's remind us: value is in the eyes of the beholders, the different stakeholders.
You are not looking at potential users of the innovations, but at the owners of the innovation process itself. So the targets of the R&D project could be patents filed, new ideas identified and verified etc.
As projects are defined as temporary initiatives to create a unique product, if we cannot predefine the product when starting the project, this initiative isn't a project at all. It can be viewed more effectively as a program that creates emerging benefits through related activities/projects.
...
1 reply by Luis Branco
Nov 04, 2025 9:20 AM
Luis Branco
...
Thank you for that thoughtful addition.
I fully agree that “value is in the eyes of the beholders.”
Indeed, innovation projects often exist within a programmatic logic, where individual initiatives act as learning vehicles contributing to an emerging portfolio of insights, patents, prototypes, or validated hypotheses.
You’re right, when the “product” cannot be predefined, the project becomes a learning cell within a larger adaptive system.
That’s why I often see R&D and transformation programs as discovery ecosystems rather than isolated projects:
Projects generate validated learning or assets.
The program curates and integrates those learnings into strategic capability.
And I agree, value must ultimately connect both perspectives:
The internal value of validated learning for the organization, and the external value experienced by future users or markets once that learning materializes.
This dual lens keeps innovation efforts both grounded and forward-looking.
In that sense, governance shifts from deliverable control to learning integration, focusing on how each iteration improves readiness, decision quality, and the organization’s ability to act with greater precision next time.
So perhaps we’re saying the same thing from two lenses, you from the structural (program) lens, and I from the epistemic (learning) one.
Both converge on one idea: true value in innovation lies in what the system becomes capable of next , not just what it delivers today.
Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
Thank you all, very insightful comments. Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Nov 03, 2025 8:23 AM
Replying to Thomas Walenta
...
Good reply, Luis.
Let's remind us: value is in the eyes of the beholders, the different stakeholders.
You are not looking at potential users of the innovations, but at the owners of the innovation process itself. So the targets of the R&D project could be patents filed, new ideas identified and verified etc.
As projects are defined as temporary initiatives to create a unique product, if we cannot predefine the product when starting the project, this initiative isn't a project at all. It can be viewed more effectively as a program that creates emerging benefits through related activities/projects.
Thank you for that thoughtful addition.
I fully agree that “value is in the eyes of the beholders.”
Indeed, innovation projects often exist within a programmatic logic, where individual initiatives act as learning vehicles contributing to an emerging portfolio of insights, patents, prototypes, or validated hypotheses.
You’re right, when the “product” cannot be predefined, the project becomes a learning cell within a larger adaptive system.
That’s why I often see R&D and transformation programs as discovery ecosystems rather than isolated projects:
Projects generate validated learning or assets.
The program curates and integrates those learnings into strategic capability.
And I agree, value must ultimately connect both perspectives:
The internal value of validated learning for the organization, and the external value experienced by future users or markets once that learning materializes.
This dual lens keeps innovation efforts both grounded and forward-looking.
In that sense, governance shifts from deliverable control to learning integration, focusing on how each iteration improves readiness, decision quality, and the organization’s ability to act with greater precision next time.
So perhaps we’re saying the same thing from two lenses, you from the structural (program) lens, and I from the epistemic (learning) one.
Both converge on one idea: true value in innovation lies in what the system becomes capable of next , not just what it delivers today.
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